S925 Silver Nine-tailed Fox Pendant, Turquoise

Turquoise is not one color. The best grade is sky blue, like the sky after rain; below that blue-green, then cabbage green, grey-green. A single stone can be half dark and half light, from what the vein carried in. Turquoise also carries a pattern called wulanhua, dense black lines on a dark ground, and some collectors look for nothing else. The turquoise face on this piece is ground flat, level with the silver frame rather than raised like a cabochon, so the hand passes over a single plane.

The iron line is turquoise's signature. Black veining runs across the stone, sometimes in a net, sometimes like a river. Some people pick stones with no iron line at all and call it clean; others prefer the lines and think that is what stone ought to look like. The turquoise face here is small, and the iron lines fall into the gaps between the fox's tails, reading as shadow between one tail and the next. An iron line is not a crack. It is original to the stone and flat to the touch. If a fingernail can pick at it, that is a crack, not an iron line.

Turquoise is porous and absorbs. Sweat, hand cream, perfume: whatever touches it goes in, and the color moves deeper, blue toward green, pale toward dark. That is the nature of the stone, not damage. Some people wear it precisely for that change; others want the original color and keep it away from water, wiping it after each wearing. Summer sweat is absorbed fast, and one summer can take the color a shade deeper. This is where it differs from silver: the change is slow, cannot be hurried, and cannot be reversed.

The silver frame wraps the stone and presses over the edge, with a small hole in the back for air. Whether the setting is tight shows at the edge. There must be no gap between frame and stone, since a gap collects dust and in time the blackening starts from it. The frame's edge lies on the face of the stone: pressed too hard it chips, too loose and the stone shifts. The whole measure of the setting is in that one rim.

Do not store it with hard objects. Turquoise is not very hard, and one roll around a bag with keys and coins leaves a web of fine scratches. When the frame tarnishes, pass a silver cloth over it lightly and do not let the chemical reach the stone. Keep it in a cloth bag when unworn, and not beside a desiccant; turquoise that loses water dries out and the color goes flat, and bringing it back takes a long time. On the hand that wears turquoise, do not put on thick hand cream.